


Thunder Clatter

by cancerously



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Shippy if you Squint, but much more about friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 22:52:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cancerously/pseuds/cancerously
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vriska always said she wore red shoes because of Mindfang. After the accident, she kept wearing them so Terezi could always find her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thunder Clatter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [confiscatedretina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/confiscatedretina/gifts).



> For confiscatedretina! Title taken from the song "Thunder Clatter" by Wild Cub, which was pretty much all I listened to while writing this.

“This wasn’t what I was expecting.”

They hadn’t spoken in tandem for years. Another thing to harken them back to the days before things went wrong.

Vriska stood, hands on her hips, her coat pushing her hair back awkwardly as she looked at Terezi. Terezi, who looked like she was barely holding together, dragon cape hung strangely around her frame, clutching one of her favorite plush toys. She’s got a lot of thoughts running through her head, but the only one that sticks in Vriska’s mind is that they still look too much like kids wearing clothes too big for them.

Terezi wore at her bottom lip a little before speaking again, not meeting Vriska’s gaze. “You never were one for fashion.”

Vriska scoffed. “Neither were you. And now you’re covered in even more gaudy colors! Pyrope, I thought you could do better. You take all the fun out of messing with you.”

Grinning again, almost like old times, but Terezi didn’t respond. Turned her head away, wore at her lip, and Vriska just scrunched up her nose.

“C’mon, Terezi, what the hell? Haven’t seen you in a few years and you shut down on me. I can’t even say I told you so anymore, it’s not fun. What did you do?”

Terezi felt herself grinding sharp tips of teeth together as she spoke. “I didn’t know I’d be seeing you here. I didn’t have time to prepare.”

“Since when did you prepare?” Vriska scoffed. “Come oooooooon Terezi, give me something here. I can’t even talk to you like this.”

Without raising her head, Terezi muttered, “Then maybe you should just leave.”

“Gosh, Pyrope, when did you become such a bore?” Vriska stepped forward, advancing on Terezi. “Did you finally hook up with Karkat or something? Or did you start smooching on that dumb clown?”

Terezi winced, and Vriska stopped.

“Terezi, are you kidding me right--” She reached up, grabbing the sides of Terezi’s hood, and stopped dead in her tracks when she was met with real, irritated yellow eyes.

“ _Fuck!_ ” Vriska yelled, stepping back onto her coattails and ending up on the floor. “Terezi, what the hell?!”

“I don’t know, okay?” Terezi screamed, hood falling back. “It… was a good idea at the time. I didn’t want to be a burden anymore. It was stupid, I know it was stupid, I don’t need anything from you about it.”

Vriska stared up at her, Terezi with her arms crossed, still holding some toy, cape tied around her neck. The last time Vriska saw her eyes, they were wigglers, curtains tied around their necks in the dead of night pretending to be their ancestors.

“Is there anything else I should know about? Did you graft something else on to your body while I was gone?” Vriska snapped back, trying to regain her footing.

“No. I don’t even know why I did this. Maybe it was a distraction, but it just ruined everything, and it wouldn’t be the same anymore.” Terezi had turned her back on where Vriska was still on the ground. “I shouldn’t have come. I just knew we were going through a dream bubble and I heard Dave say you might be here and I thought that I’d have something to say to you, but I don’t. I never did.” She slumped to the floor, cape curled around her, head dropped.

Vriska looked towards Terezi’s hunched form. “Terezi, are you… still holding on to what happened? I don't even know how long it's been out there but I've been over that foreeeeeeeever.”

Terezi was silent for a couple of seconds before taking a haggard breath. “I am a judge, jury and executioner, and I have been on trial for a very, very long time. I do not know when it will end. I do not get that right.”

Vriska frowned. “I know you probably think I’m some cheater, but don’t you think you’re lying to yourself? Jeez, if I held myself accountable for all the shit I did in my life I’d hate myself too.”

Terezi whipped up and around, all angles and sharp edges and too-big cape, almost looking like she could shatter into pieces. “It doesn’t matter! You did not deserve what happened.” She took another sharp breath through her teeth. “I have to pay for my mistakes. You already have.” Vriska narrowed her eyes, stepping towards Terezi, and grabbing her shoulders in one fluid motion. Terezi stiffened, hands balled into fists at rest near her hip.

“Come ON, Terezi, look at yourself! Do you really think I’m worse off now? Hell, I’m a ghost and I’ve gotten more done than you in whatever time since you’ve died!” Vriska was shouting, almost shaking the other girl, who had gone mostly limp. “What the hell happened? You’re better than this, Pyrope. You’ve been better than this. You used to lord over me how much better than me you were! Do I really have to be there for you to be a self-righteous stick-in-the-mud?”

“There isn’t a point anymore, Vriska!” Terezi exploded, arms shaking out, head whipping upward. “I can’t control this. It’s my punishment for taking something I never should have!” Vriska made a move to grab her again, and Terezi cringed; Vriska deflated, arms dropping, until they were standing in silence.

“… The red shoes were for you, you know.” Vriska muttered, causing Terezi’s head to jerk up.

“What?”

“The shoes. When we FLARPed, they were for Mindfang. I couldn’t run in boots when I was little. Remember?” Vriska grinned, despite herself, and her smile stretched a bit when the corners of Terezi’s mouth twitched. “But then we got into that fight and you were blinded. And I remembered you liked red, like a lot, so I kept wearing them. You switched your shoes over to red too so you’d know where you were going. So now you could find me, too. In case you ever decided to go back.” 

They lapsed into another short silence. Terezi broke it, this time. “You keep saying it like anything can be taken back. Like I can go back and change the way the world went.”

“No, but if I gave up every time I failed, I’d be de—” She stopped, making a face. Terezi giggled, just slightly. “Okay, still dead, but. Hell, I’m not even doing badly. Met a bunch of new people, have a new mission, gave me some time to figure myself out. Being a ghost was a new start. I couldn’t have changed what I was doing then. It was… too much. This was, in hindsight, the best thing you could’ve done for me.”

Terezi let out a sigh, pulling the corner of her mouth up a little to bare her teeth. “Well, I am glad I could help you so greatly in stabbing you in the back. Literally and metaphorically.” Vriska rolled her eyes.

“Come ON Terezi, you used to do so much when you were asleep. You’d boast about how you learned to smell-see and you chose to be blind, what the hell happened to that?”

Terezi looked down, staring at Vriska’s shoes. “I lost it. I mean, I still can taste, but… it’s not as strong, now. I’m not as good.”

Vriska stepped forward, grabbing Terezi by the shoulders again. “C’mon, Pyrope. Let it go. Feel it. Claim some damn control, at least over your own dreams. Do what you want.” A pause. “I’m fine.”

Terezi stopped, stepping backwards, pulling her hood back over her head and taking a breath. It registered in Vriska’s mind that she could tell she was breathing through her nose. It’s funny, she mused, what she remembers after all this time.

“Terezi? C’mon, don’t cry, jeez.” Stepping towards her, Vriska extended her hands to pull the hood down. Before she could grab it, however, Terezi jumped forward, thrusting the hood off her head, and Vriska was met with the red glint of glasses and fiery eyes behind them.

Before she could muse any further, Terezi had licked her straight up the face and she was screaming.

“Augh, Pyrope, damn--” Vriska sputtered as Terezi cackled, doubled over with her tongue lolling out, and Vriska couldn’t help but smirk a little. “Great, you get your confidence back and I get spit. Fantastic.”

“You should have known better, Vriska!” Terezi howled, teeth matching in a wide grin. “You cannot take down the great Pyrope! She simply cannot be stopped!”

Vriska rolled her eyes in an exaggerated manner, before realizing that without visible retinas, this didn’t go over so well. “Great, and even I look blind, so I can’t even explain how weeeeeeeeird you are.”

“Perfect!” Terezi quipped. “Then perhaps we can finally agree on something other than matching shoes.”

“And what’s wrong with matching shoes?”

“Nothing.” Terezi paused, to suck another breath in through her nose. “Only when you go somewhere I cannot follow.”

Vriska paused, looking shocked, before Terezi leaned forward and kicked her shoe. “But I suppose you can start making up for that, by standing trial! Right here, right now!”

A loud groan encompassed the open plain. “Auuuuuuuugh, not this again!” Terezi’s cackling filled the open void.

“Let the court block convene!”


End file.
